Auteurs principaux: Daniel Pimienta
Date de publication: 1995-06-12
Date d'actualization du HTML: 2000-01-05
Langue d'origine: English
Régions: République Dominicaine
Sujets: Le réseau dominicain
Projets connexes: REDID
Typo de document: Editoriaux
Voir les documents connexes
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Date: Mon, 12 Jun 1995 12:01:18 EST
From: "Pimienta Daniel "
Subject: More info on Caribbean Networking
On Caribbean Networking
By Daniel Pimienta
12 June, 1995
Dear colleagues,
FUNREDES is completing the information you have taken the
initiative to publish in your gopher about networking in the
Caribbean. Please, feel free to update your information base
with this note (or with selected parts of it).
GOPHER.PSG.COM
First of all, let us congratulate you for the useful and
comprehensive work you are realizing in collecting data on
networks in Developing Countries. Only recently, thanks to the
first Internet full connection in the Dominican Republic (see
note 1), we could get to visit and browse and
enjoy it.
We also want to thank you for presenting, in your gopher,
information about our organization (FUNREDES) and REDID (the
Dominican research network). We sincerely appreciate this
contribution in defense of pluralism.
The conditions are (at last!) present for the creation of REDID
and FUNREDES.ORG internet nodes and subsequent gophers and webs
(see note 2). It will take an estimated 4 months to get them in
operation. We will then inform you and we could proceed to
organize the required linkages.
As for Haiti (REHRED), I am afraid it will take an additional 3
months to get there (see note 3). Meanwhile, we will try to
provide you with more accurate and up to date information.
CARIBBEAN NETWORK TRAFFIC FIGURES
In our last trip to , we discovered, with a
tremendous interest (we have been so eager to get them for
years!), the CUNET traffic figures.
The report of CUNET is misleading when it presents the .DO
figures. It should be specified that these figures are limited to
PUCMM.EDU.DO (the CUNET component of Dominican Rep.) and that
they do not include REDID.ORG/EDU.DO.
As you may know, the .DO domain, still under management in
Puerto Rico, is shared by the two networks. With the imminent
creation of, at least, two more Internet commercial providers (in
fierce competition) and the migration of REDID to the Internet,
the managing of the .DO by a Dominican entity is soon becoming a
priority. This is a touchy issue, requiring fair concertizing
between the involved entities. FUNREDES is taking actions to
initiate and smooth the process.
As for the correspondent traffic and user figures for REDID.DO,
they are shown in note 4 and 5.
You will notice that REDID ALONE represents as much traffic as the ENTIRE
CUNET (including the CUNET .DO component)
To enhance the Caribbean perspective it will be worth having
more data, in particular the corresponding Jamaican and Cuban
figures. For Cuba, I hope the CENIAI Director can show the
figures. For Jamaica, I hope the people of University of West
Indies could provide corresponding figures.
COMMENTING ON THE FIGURES
In the persistent lack of user directories (or total user
numbers) from CUNET, these figures are the closest way we
got for approximation of the numbers of users in CUNET (see note
6). For those interested in methodology evaluation matters, they
offer the most reliable indication, 3 years after the parallel
start of REDID and CUNET. REDID was designed with the "REDALC
methodology" (see note 7) which focuses in building the user
base and institutions and relies in partnership with telecom
operators (the Codetel company have been helpfully supporting
the entire international and national telecommunication costs of
REDID, since may 1992).
WHAT IS AT STAKE BEHIND THE FACTS?
The point is hardly to compare projects in terms of methodology
vs results. The question about what project is doing better is
secondary. The real issue is, independently of how and with what
project, TO GET MORE PEOPLE USING THE NETWORK
IN THE CARIBBEAN RESEARCH COMMUNITY.
The installed base of CUNET is a lot better than nothing, but
let's be fair: it is not enough. The traffic figures alone speak
for themselves (and networking is much more than traffic).
The critical point is that, as an undesirable side effect of the
excellent marketing of CUNET, funding agencies tend to consider
that the RESEARCH NETWORKS PROBLEM IS SOLVED IN THE CARIBBEAN.
Unfortunately, THIS IS JUST NOT TRUE, although it does lead to
DRAWING AWAY the badly needed SUPPORT, that otherwise would have been
available for around here.
A CRUDE DIAGNOSTIC OF CARIBBEAN NETWORKING
This issue calls for prompt action. It begins by
recognizing the objective real situation. The rest should
follows naturally, namely the assignment of the required
resources, with participation of the key players in this field.
The Caribbean is not another northern district (indeed it is not
quite Latin America either), it has proved to hold a
delicate mixture of values demanding a tactful approach.
It's still a long way to Caribbean integration, even
in the cyber-Caribbean. . .
FUNREDES have repeatedly insisted that a "user connectivity"
component was still missing to facilitate the research and
academic users growth and institutionalization (as it is tried,
for instance in Cuba and the Dominican Republic). By "user
connectivity" (instead of "physical connectivity") we mean a
comprehensive set of actions, from decision makers sensitization,
user training, user group forming, to the production and
organization of national and regional information base. The
reinforcing of the level of institution and the technology
transfer being the key criteria of success, besides the number
of real and satisfied users.
FUNREDES have been unsuccessful so far to convey this message
to those interested in the Caribbean and susceptible to support
actions. As a matter of fact:
- REDID received no further support after 1993, and its
operation and growth have been, as a consequence, seriously
affected in the period mid-1994 to mid-1995, with a total traffic
decrease. With a total investment of say 75,000 US$, REDID
would have turned today more than 70% of the targeted
researchers into real users (instead of 25%). This is less
than the cost of standing a regional meeting for making
decision about what to do to solve the very problem of the
Dominican network :-(.
- FUNREDES, although a consistently active and productive field
player in the Caribbean, since 1988 (see note 8), has never
been called to participate in the consultive or decision
regional meetings on Caribbean networks, and, furthermore,
is totally absent from the list of funded NGOs in that region
and in that field. It is ironical and sad to confess than
FUNREDES, a non profit field oriented organization, have
more success getting support from private companies than
from the "funding" agencies...
CONCLUSION
If the grass-root people are going to disappear, because of the
lack of support, who will implement the nice strategies discussed
in the regional meetings where several international
functionaries gathered from all over the world to decide the
future of other people who are not even involved in the process?
How about a 10% "field tax" collect on these meetings to go to
the people who are doing the job, back in the field?
That will probably be enough to maintain the field organizations
alive without preventing these meetings to happen. . .
One can expect that the simple facing of these figures will give
some matter for reflection to the funding agencies about the
productivity of their investments and about the real importance
and productivity of those who are struggling in the field, with
reduced support, to keep grass-roots efforts going on.
How about a fair and constructive vision of Caribbean Networking?
Best regards from the Dominican Republic,
Daniel Pimienta and colleagues from
Foundation Networks and Development (FUNREDES)
PO BOX 2972- Santo Domingo
Dominican Republic
Santo Domingo
tel: + 1 809 535 2422
fax: 535 6646
pimienta!daniel@redid.org.do
pimienta@aacr.us.net
NOTE 1: INTERNET IN THE DOMINICAN REP.
May 4th, the private company AACR announced the start of its
service and its willingness to cooperate for totally free access
to REDID members. This was reported in KISKEYA and SALSA lists.
The two other telecom operators CODETEL and TRICOM are about to
market their respective services (and, hopefully, complementary
or alternative offers to REDID).
NOTE 2: FUNREDES AND REDID INTERNET NODES
- FUNREDES got, as a donation from SUN Corp., two Sparc Servers
which will provide for the two respective nodes.
- AACR offered, free of charge, the Internet connectivity via its
own infrastructure, for both nodes.
- CID (a British cooperation agency) is going to take care
of the cost of the person to drive the technical efforts for both
nodes.
- FUNREDES is in the process to recruit this Unix/Internet skilled
person to move along.
NOTE 3: HAITI NETWORK UPDATE
- REHRED is still waiting funds for its technical connectivity
setup (here again, the request was around 75,000 US$, and times
goes on!).
- REHRED steering committee is keeping on the work for the
institutional and organizational layers. More people/institutions
are getting involved in the process (meanwhile, most are
using the commercial e-mail service available -ACN- as standard
customers).
- Christian Aid is supporting a part of the FUNREDES effort to
assist REHRED; Senaida Jansen is about to go in mission to help
the coordination group and FUNREDES is committed for a training
effort to be held last trimester 95.
NOTE 4: REDID TRAFFIC DATA
These results are obtained from partial data collected from both
the codemail node and the UPR2 node. We are in the process to
complete the data and cross-check the results. Meanwhile, one can
use the average figures since there are strong and relatively
stable patterns.
Stable observed patterns (period from 10/94 to 5/95):
- Percentage of REDID in-bound messages: 50%
- Percentage of out-bound messages: 50%
- Of which, incoming: 80%
- Of which, outgoing: 20%
- AVG DAILY External incoming (from Internet to REDID) = .8 Mbytes
- AVG DAILY External outgoing (from REDID to Internet) = .2 Mbytes
- AVG DAILY Internal (from REDID to REDID) = 1.0 Mbytes
- AVG DAILY Total = 2.0 Mbytes
Which makes the 30x2. = 60 Mbytes monthly figure we used.
NOTE 5: REDID USER FIGURES
REDID publishes on a regular basis its user listing. After the
difficult period of 1994/95, in terms of user support and
installation (as a consequence from the absence of external
support), REDID is in the process to reinforce its operation
(with the cooperation of FUNREDES) and to update the listing.
There are now some 120 end-users from 60 member institutions
(not all of them having "real users"). The growth factor which
have been relatively stable, between 1 and 2 new institutions
per month, should climb now to an estimated 3 to 6 with the
improvment of the operation and the strong Internet media
attention in the country.
The number of user per institutions varies from one unit
to a maximum of 26 and 16, respectively for UNDP and PUCMM in
Santiago (among the rare institutions having been capable to
organize the REDID access via LAN). The NGOs are the most active
users of REDID. Although connections are organized in several
universities, the systematic in-networking of the Dominican
universities is still a pending item in the national agenda
(this issue escapes from REDID responsibility). Besides REDID and
CUNET/PUCMM.DO, several BBS initiatives (as in INTEC) are trying
to fill the gap, still open, for the students connectivity.
NOTE 6: CUNET USER FIGURES EXTRAPOLATION
If one uses, as a projection factor, the ratio "data volume/user"
of REDID (during the period 10/94 til 4/95) and backup it with
some traffic assumptions, it is possible to guess some user
figures for CUNET. Obviously, this is just an extrapolation,
provided for the sake of comparison, and should be treated then
as such. I wish that Cunet node administrators will correct the
extrapolated figures and publish the real ones (together with
the associated directories, so that to facilitate the
in-Caribbean communication).
Traffic assumptions:
- Average data exchange volume per user per day= 16 Kbytes
(which represents an average 4 messages of an average 4Kbytes).
This comes from the simple scheme:
- 1/2 infrequent users (few msg. per week) Avg. daily= 4 Kbytes
- 1/4 average users (few msg. per day) Avg. daily= 12 Kbytes
- 1/4 frequent users (few tenth of msg.per day) Avg.= 44 Kbytes
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
- Total average = 16 Kbytes
Which makes an average .5 Mbytes per user per month.
The variance is obviously very high, and then the extrapolation
process is uncertain where the user figures is very low, as in
most Cunet nodes (one single active user may generate as much as
20 times more Bytes than a slow one!).
It is worth noting that:
- The monthly figure obtained does correspond to the REDID
collected data.
- Subscribed persons without an e.mail address defined or with a
null traffic e.mail address are NOT considered users until they
start to effectively use the services.
- Some network administrators are not respecting this obvious
rule, confusing administrative paperwork with electronic
communication, and this is why, in the absence of homogenous
data, the traffic volume is the most relevant parameter for the
evaluation of the state of a network.
For the CUNET node, the average of the published data has been
used.
USER COMPARISON TABLE
ISO-CODE AVG MBytes PROJ. POPULATION
COUNTRY COUNTRY Per Month USERS (MILLION)
Antigua and Bermuda AG 1.06 2 .07
Bahamas BS 4.15 8 .25
Barbados BB 8.59 17 .26
Belize BZ 13.74 28 .19
Dominican Rep CUNET DO 3.62 7 7.00
***Dominican Rep REDID DO 60.00 120 7.00
Grenada GR 0.63 1 .10
Guyana GY 0.10 1 .80
St. Lucia LC 11.72 24 .14
Vincent and Gren. VC 0.79 2 .11
Suriname SR 2.29 5 .42
Trinidad/Tobago TT 17.14 34 1.30
_________________________________________________________
TOTAL CUNET 66.92 129 10.64
TOTAL REDID 60.00 120 7.00
Note: If one takes into account the size of the population, some
CUNET nodes (such as St Lucia and Belize) hold notable figures in
terms of market penetration. It will be worth studying what
factors have produced those interesting results.
NOTE 7: REDALC METHODOLOGY REFERENCE
- "Crear redes de investigadores en paises en desarrollo es otra
historia", FUNREDES, 7/92
- "Research Networks in Developing Countries: Not exactly the same
Story!", Proceeding of INET93, San Francisco, 8/93, FAB1-11
Stored in GNET electronic archive (FTP
directory "global_net", file "research_net_guide.txt))
- "REDALC Methodology", Matrix News, 9/93 (shorter version)
The Chapter V ("A private hot tub vs. a public swimming pool") is
particularly relevant to the point we are making, as it tries to
show, in a humoristic fashion, that:
"Building a network has much to do with the gathering of people
under a common and structures organizational scheme than
installing hardware and software."
NOTE 8: LIST OF FUNREDES ACTIONS IN THE CARIBBEAN
REDALC WORKSHOP, Santo Domingo, 8/91: REDALC (Red de
America Latina y el Caribe) is a project of Union Latina,
funded by European Union and with the participation of Unesco and
Funredes. The feasibility study of the project
established the methodological framework for all the subsequent
actions of the group. The partners will publish, by the end of
the year, a comprehensive document about LA&C networking.
There is no plan for execution though.
The REDALC Workshop, with official guests from Dominican Rep.,
Haiti, Cuba and Puerto Rico had a strong Caribbean component and
served as genesis for the launching of the Peruvian, Dominican
and Haitian networks.
STATUS= Executed.
IMPACT STUDY OF NETWORKS IN ANTILLES FRANCAISES, with
Conseil Regional on European Union budget.
STATUS= Completed, June 92.
REDID, May 92-May 95: successively, PTT negotiation,
launch, operation, technology transfer, technical assistance
for the Dominican research network.
STATUS=well and alive, migration to Internet on the way.
REDID USER WORKSHOP, July 92: the first organized effort
in the region to provide comprehensive and massive USER
TRAINING (some 100 people attended this effort sponsored by
European Union, co-organized with Unesco/Cresalc which allow the
gathering of several key people in that field).
STATUS= Executed and documented.
CARIBBEAN NETWORKS FIRST REGIONAL WORKSHOP, May 93: the
first project for the meeting of all Caribbean networks
field actors, organized by the Cuban, Venezuelan and Dominican
people.
STATUS= Last week cancelled because of lack of funding, never
reorganized for the same reason.
Numerous meeting has been later organized in the Caribbean
about networking, none with the presence of the principal
field actors. Each year since 1991, a regional meeting is
organized for LA&C networks, the absence of representation of the
majority of the Caribbean networks is unfortunately the norm.
REHRED WORKSHOPS, May 93: the first step towards the Haitian
network.
STATUS= Executed and documented
- REHRED, may 93-may 95: the process for creation of the
Haitian research network, difficult but stubborn move, in spite
of the political turmoils and the persistent lack of funding (is
not that surprising?).
STATUS=On the move but badly needs funding.
- KISKEYA@CONICIT.VE, mid-93; listserv for Dominican
Rep. researchers (150 subscribed).
STATUS= (average) ACTIVE
- SALSA@CONICIT.VE, mid-93: Listserv for the Caribbean
(170 subscribers).
STATUS= (slow) ACTIVE
- HAITI-L@CONICIT.VE, mid 93: Listserv for Haitian
researchers (140 subscribers).
STATUS= (quite) ACTIVE
- SALSA-TRAN, beg. 94: Project to provide automatic
language translation in the SALSA listserv so that to facilitate
in-Caribbean communication.
STATUS= Waiting for funding.
- NEO-LISTSERV, 10/93: Project to enhance the management of
our listservs with the coupling of an electronic archive and
the creation of reference notes by an information specialist.
STATUS= Waiting for funding.
- CARITIN (Caribbean Integration Through Information
Network), 10/93: a comprehensive project for adding user
connectivity and contents in the Caribbean networks.
STATUS= Waiting for funding (and also for feed-back).
Note: If PSG.COM wish so we could provide a copy to be stored.
- SAMANA: a project to gather a brain force (in Samana,
Dominican Republic) to overlook the impact of the Internet in the
South.
STATUS= Defined, waiting for funding.
- TELESINERGIA: a project defined to coordinate mixed
joint-ventures in the Caribbean Basin for the constitution of a
competitive force to target the information market. Twenty one
Caribbean related institutions have signed formal agreements
to cooperate with TELESINERGIA. Taking into account the Internet
evolution toward a commercial media and in answer to the NGOs
funding crisis, FUNREDES have conceived its new strategical
project and an original contribution to the above mentioned
evolution.
STATUS= Fund hunting expected soon thanks to Bolivar
Program's "Enlace" mechanism.
- CARIBBEAN RIGHTS NETWORKING and TEACHING: Funredes
has been requested, by Huridocs and Caribbean Rights, to help
Caribbean Human Rights Branches their way to networking.
Action made locally, end of 94, in Barbados (helping the branch
connection to Cunet and training) and in Haiti. Actions to
start for remote coordination with Cunet administrators
now. Regional action planned last trimester in Santo Domingo
for user training.
STATUS= ON ITS WAY.
- GENDER AND NETWORKS IN THE CARIBBEAN:
STATUS= DEFINITION STAGE
- COMPUTER MEDIATED EDUCATION FOR CARIBBEAN INTEGRAL
DEVELOPMENT: In partnership with ADEP-Martinique (Association
pour le Developpement de la Pedagogie) and UAG (Universite
Antilles-Guyane), this project targets the valorization of
cultural, linguistic, social and touristic assets of the
Caribbean, by the use of new information technologies.
STATUS= DEFINITION STAGE
- TRAINING AND FORMING VIRTUAL COMMUNITY: Assistance from
FUNREDES to ENDA-CARIBE for networking activities in the
Caribbean.
STATUS=ON-GOING
- FUNREDES INTERNET NODE AND WEB (with a clear
Caribbean orientation)
